Benchmarks of a Forgotten Child
by Crittab
Summary: Jeff and Annie have each suffered from their parents' mistakes.


**Title: **Benchmarks of a Forgotten Child

**Rating: **PG-13

**Spoilers: **None

**Word Count: **

**Disclaimer: **I don't own Community, yo

**Summary: **Jeff and Annie have each suffered from their parents' mistakes.

* * *

**Benchmarks of a Forgotten Child**

**Five**

Jeff listened to his parents argue from his safe haven in the broom closet. He always hid there when things got bad. For some reason, even though his dad _always_ found him, and _always_ hit him, and _always_ made him feel lower than dirt, he thought that stupid broom closet would protect him. It didn't, of course, but he thought it might, and that false sense of security was enough to confine him to the tiny dark space most nights when his dad came home.

Tonight his dad was yelling louder, and things were being smashed, and he could hear his mother crying. Tonight he felt his stomach clench in fear, making him feel sick and a little woozy. Tonight, he thought, something was different.

Even at five, he could tell the tone had changed. His dad wasn't just yelling, he's was exploding. He was going down, and taking them all with him.

Jeff remembered seeing something on a daytime TV show that his mother liked to watch about a father killing his wife and children, and then turning the gun on himself. He thought of the small handgun his father kept in his bedside table for protection, and briefly wondered if he and his mother would face the same fate that night.

He couldn't help it—he threw up in the mop bucket. At least it didn't get on the floor. Maybe his dad wouldn't notice.

He waited and waited and waited for his dad to come get him. He waited in the small room that now smelled overpoweringly like vomit for what seemed like forever, until the crashing and the screaming in the living room gave way to the stifled sobs of his mother, and some banging around upstairs.

Then the front door opened and slammed shut. His dad's car started, and he could hear it backfire as the engine was gunned.

Tires screeched. His dad couldn't get away fast enough.

Jeff stayed in the closet for a while longer.

* * *

Annie and her dad played with her tea set. He put on a pink feathered boa and a princesses tiara and sipped the non-existent liquid, his pinky finger flipped out as he demonstrated for Annie the _proper way_ to drink imaginary tea.

She giggled. Her dad was her hero, in every way imaginable. He was a gigantic brute of a man, who watched a lot of football and worked his hands to the bone each day as a carpenter. He was also her playmate—her best friend. He'd play with her tea set, he'd play with her dolls, he'd read her books, he'd make up amazing stories on-the-spot. He laughed with her, hugged her, tickled her, and made her feel safe and loved and happy.

Then the front door opened and closed, and a genuine smile lit up on his face.

"Mommy's home," he said. Annie beamed, jumping up from her child-sized table and racing out of the room, giggling and screaming as her dad raced after her, picking her up and slinging her over his shoulder as they went to greet her mother with a kiss and hug.

"I like this look on you," her mother teased her father, picking at the end of the boa.

"I think pink's my colour," he joked back, placing a loving kiss on her cheek. Annie watched them interact from the floor, and couldn't help the smile that broke out on her face. Watching her parents was like having Cinderella take place in her very own living room. Their love was so pure and real and just so _there_.

She imagined her life would be just as magical. She bet on it.

**Twelve**

Jeff's mother shooed him out of the room as she picked up the telephone. He went around the corner, but stayed near enough that he could hear her end of the conversation.

"Bill, I told you, you can't keep calling like this."

"But you didn't make last month's child support payment either..."

"I don't care if you're out of work—you have responsibilities...

"Right, because you've made such an effort..."

"You haven't even spoken to him in six years, Bill...

"Keeping count? It's not hard to keep count when the number is _zero_."

"Well did you want to talk to him?... didn't think so."

"God damn it, Bill."

"Yea, well, fuck you too."

Jeff ran quickly to his room at the sound of the phone being roughly replaced in its holder. He didn't want his mom to know he'd heard, and he definitely didn't want her to see the tears streaming down his face.

He had spoken to his dad twice since he left. The first time was a few weeks after he walked out. The old man had given him instructions to take care of his mother—and then when Jeff cried he called him a pussy and told him to man-up. Even at five, Jeff knew that a five year old couldn't really _be_ a pussy, but it still stung.

The second time was on his sixth birthday. His father had promised to come visit him and bring him a gift. He waited on the doorstep for three hours before finally giving up hope. A few days later, there was a card in the mailbox that simply said, "Happy sixth," as though it had been written by a perfect stranger, or maybe the librarian in his school—someone with zero emotional attachment.

That was around the time when Jeff stopped expecting his father to be anything more than the ghost of a memory. At twelve, he wasn't surprised that he'd never spoken to him again, though he would have liked to be able to say otherwise. He'd had six years to get used to the idea that he wasn't wanted, that he was a burden, but that knowledge still stung.

He cried into his pillow for a few hours before heading to the local community centre to play foosball.

* * *

Annie locked her bedroom door and spread her homework out on her desk. She focused intently on the algebra in front of her, hoping the numbers and equations would be able to drown out her parents' incessant arguing.

It didn't. She knew it wouldn't, but it was worth a shot.

She turned on the radio and tried to overpower the noise. 'Don't Let Me Get Me' by Pink came on, and she sang along as loud as she could.

She didn't think she was a hazard to herself, but she knew her parents were. They were hazards to themselves, to her, to everyone they came across. Her mother's previously jovial smile had long since disappeared, giving way to something much less sincere. Her father didn't play with her anymore. She had outgrown dolls and tea parties, but he didn't even say hello most nights.

"Annie! Supper!" Her mother's voice drowned out the music blaring from the radio. Annie bit the inside of her lip. Supper was always the worst time of the day for their rapidly fracturing family unit. The tension between her parents made it uncomfortable and awkward, though they tried to force the conversation for what Annie assumed was her benefit. If they really wanted to do something nice for her, they'd just let her eat in her room.

She flicked off the radio and pulled open her bedroom door, trekking to the dining room where the dishes were set and her parents were sitting at either end of the table with fake smiles plastered on their faces.

"How was school?" her mother asked. Annie answered briefly.

"Did you learn anything new?" she attempted. Annie shook her head.

"Did you do anything fun?" Again, a shake of the head. Her mother sighed and gave up, pulling her napkin from the table and setting in on her lap.

Silence descended, and the only sounds to be heard with those of chewing and utensils scraping against plates.

"How was your day, Harold?" her mother attempted. The man shrugged, saying nothing.

"Nothing to say?"

"Nope."

"Really?"

"Really."

Annie's mother set her fork and knife down on her plate, the sound louder than Annie expected, making her jump in her seat.

"So that's it? You're not even going to _try_ to participate in the conversation?" Her father set down his utensils just as roughly.

"What conversation, Alison? This one you keep trying to force on us? We don't want it. _Annie_ doesn't want it."

"Don't try to use Annie against me, Harold. You have no right..."

"No right to what? Eat in fucking silence?" Annie's eyes went wide as she viewed the exchange between her parents.

Eventually she slipped out of her chair and retired to her bedroom. Her dad slipped out that night and took up residence in a nearby hotel, where he stayed until the divorce papers had been drawn up. He didn't even try for joint custody, content with seeing her one weekend a month and on special occasions.

She turned on the radio again and Pink's 'Family Portrait' began to play. She didn't even attempt to stop her tears when the song plead for the father not to leave.

**Seventeen**

Jeff relaxed back onto his girlfriend's bed, naked, spent, and exhausted.

They'd been together for about three weeks. As far as Jeff was concerned, that was long enough, but he wasn't ready to break up with her just yet. They'd only started sleeping together a few days earlier and he thought he'd get some more mileage out of her before he ended it.

"You know what I think?" she asked as she curled into his side. He put his arm around her in the way he thought he was supposed to, but it felt unnatural.

"What?"

"I think you're the one." Jeff struggled not to laugh at her abrupt declaration. If only she knew how wrong she was.

"The one?" he repeated. She nodded and turned her head up so she could view his face.

"I think so. I love you, Jeff."

Crap. He was going to have to end this sooner rather than later.

"You don't love me," he responded in the only way he knew how. Her brow furrowed, and she pushed herself up onto her elbow. Jeff fought to keep his eyes on hers, even though her breasts were now clearly visible to him, and he was a teenage boy.

"Yes I do. Why? Don't you love me?" Her expression was so sincere that Jeff almost felt guilty for stringing her along this long—but, well, she was hot, and he wanted to sleep with her. _Feelings_ weren't really his thing. They hadn't been his thing since his dad called him a pussy at age five and told him to man up. Jeff decided 'manning up' meant taking the smart route, and never putting himself in the position his parents had found themselves in: trapped in a loveless marriage, with a child they didn't want, and a mortgage they couldn't pay for.

"Look, Angela..." Her face crumpled, and he knew that this was going to be an uncomfortable moment. He didn't _want_ to hurt her, he just thought he would have more time before she pulled out the _'L word.'_

"You did all of this just to sleep with me, didn't you?" He had the decency to feel kind of bad—but she was right, he did. He told her so in the nicest way he could think of. Not five minutes later, he was kicked out of her room and out of her life.

At least she dumped him. He was much easier to be the dump-ee—he could move on right away and there would be no questions about overlap. As far as he was concerned, Angela had done him a solid.

* * *

Annie took two small, white pills, dry swallowing them and then following up with a sip at the water fountain.

Today she would take the SAT's. She was ready to blow them out of the water and send in her application to Princeton, her Ivy League school of choice. Her head started buzzing with adrenaline from the drugs pretty quickly.

She started taking Adderall the year prior, finding it to be a delightfully easy way to black out the pain and distress still left-over from her father leaving, and her mother becoming increasingly difficult to live with. Even now, even with Annie bringing in straight 'A's and constantly beating out her classmates, it seemed nothing she could do was good enough for the woman who used to praise her for hard work.

She didn't have time to worry about that now, though. The drugs were starting to kick in, and she had to be on the top of her game to ace the test. She knew that if she could just get a good score on the SAT's and gain acceptance to Princeton (or Harvard, or Yale, she wasn't too picky), that her mother would have little choice but to accept what she'd accomplished and maybe even praise her for it.

Her heart began to race as she neared the lecture hall where the test was supposed to take place. She blinked hard, her vision blurring ever-so-slightly. She looked around and saw one of her classmates—though this person... person? Whatever he was, he appeared to have wires sticking out of his chest, and his head had taken on a metallic hue.

If she had to describe him to another person in the future (which she presumed she would have to, he was very much out-of-place), she'd be forced to say that he looked like a robot.

She looked around. Another robot, and another.

She felt panic take hold. Everyone was a robot. She had to tell somebody—warn them.

She broke into an all-out sprint, screaming for people to notice, to hide, to escape while they still could. She didn't see the plate-glass door, and she barely felt it as she crashed through it. Her vision blacked out entirely as she tripped and fell into millions of shards of glass. Even with her vision gone, she still felt the panic, along with a hundred pin-pricks all over her body. The robots had reached her, she assumed. She would have no escape now.

She idly wished her daddy was there to protect her.

**Twenty-four and Thirty-Seven**

Annie sunk into Jeff's chest, the two having just finished making love in their big, warm marital bed. She let her finger trace shapes over his heart.

She thought about whether or not she'd like to have kids with him.

Jeff thought about whether or not he'd like to have kids with her.

They both came to the conclusions on their own that yes, they would like that very much. But not yet. Not for a while.

There was still some hurt left to overcome before either would be ready for that next step.

**End**

* * *

Hope you liked it. Let me know!


End file.
